Timothée Chalamet

Joel Edgerton

Sean Harris

Tom Glynn-Carney

Lily-Rose Depp

Thomasin McKenzie

Robert Pattinson

Ben Mendelsohn

Andrew Havill

Dean-Charles Chapman

Steven Elder

Edward Ashley

Stephen Fewell

Tara Fitzgerald

Tom Fisher

Tom Lawrence

Ivan Kaye

Gábor Czap

Josef Davies

Roderick Hill

Kurta Niké

Nicholas Wittman

Philip Rosch

Lucas Hansen

Tom Lacroix

Cedric Cirotteau

Jack Bandeira

Kristóf Widder

Vincent Latorre

Bence Bakti

Bardó Fenyvesi

Henry Dent

Harry Trevaldwyn

Laurent Winkler

Jeremy Chevillotte

Thibault de Montalembert

Oscar Bennett

Andrew 'A.J.' Johnson

Vicky Ralph

Gabriella Loria

Susanna Lenton

Kellie Waugh

Liam Byrne

Neil Swain

Rupert Lloyd-Parry

Sarah Pasquali

Sasha Gibson

Kasra Rassoulzadegan

Jamie Mills

Colleen Clarke

Demetri Jagger

Gabrielle Spanswick

Mick Boraso

Edwina Hayes

Stuart Morton

Simon Diggins

Chris Basta

Tara Webb

Semih Ozkoseoglu

Tim Ryan

Lisa Kelly

Leah Katz

Robert Searl

Geoff Foster

Robert Mackenzie

Jemma Burns

Oliver Atherton

Sam Petty

Alison Wortman

John Finklea

Alex Francis

Bruce Emery

Thomas Vicari

Sara Emack

David Michôd

Nicholas Britell

Brad Pitt

Jeremy Kleiner

Adam Arkapaw

Liz Watts

Alessandro Bertolazzi

Des Hamilton

Fiona Crombie

Dede Gardner

Peter Sciberras

Colin Mutch

Christina Oh

Gareth John

David Minkowski

Steve E. Andrews

Peter Nightingale

Ryo Murakawa

Anita Overland

Ildikó Kemény

Steve Dent

Alice Felton

Andrew Jackson

Jan Petřina

Paul Purdy

Flora Moody

Edoardo Petti

Matthew Hywel-Davies

Jane Petrie

Francine Maisler

Kata Baranyi

Peter Mountain

Nash Edgerton

Jac Fitzgerald

Mario Vacarro

William Shakespeare

Gergo Daniel

Kate Elum

Sammy Shikaze

Iván Pohárnok

Ahmed Yousry

Tamás Farkas

Anna Daniel

Peter Bowmar

János Henk

Jeremy Saunders

Barbara Kund

Matyas Borda

Andrea Kozma

Levente Lezsák

Hannah Eccleston

Alexander Gunn

Yannick Ben

Athina Sapanidis

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biography

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medieval france

Just finished The King, a modern interpretation of parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V, seemingly targeted at millennials.

It's common knowledge that much of Shakespeare's Henry V is based on hearsay, yet his pre-battle speeches at Barfleur ('Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.') and Agincourt ('We band of brothers') have become the stuff of legend and remain the most stirring battle speeches of our time. In The King, Henry's pre-battle speech at Agincourt is neither stirring or inspirational due to being a watered-down, 21st-century, politically correct rendition, which I found hard to stomach.

The King portrays Henry (Hal) as a pacifist and reluctant leader, a fop to Catherine of Valois and I found Timothee Chalomet's (an American) performance as Hal to be too 21st century and not in the slightest bit convincing. In fact, he seemed reluctant to carry out any of the deeds that the real Henry V actually carried out.

The battle scenes were very realistic and the cinematography was superb, but...

This is yet another nod to the PC millennials, diluting and revising both Shakespeare and history into easily digestible snack bites for the sensitive of our era.

It’s a fine half-adaptation, but suffers from the compromise it makes.

On the one hand, it is not simply another adaptation of Shakespeare - it has the advantages of taking a fresh look at the material, but for whatever reason still somehow carried across much of the fictional elements of Shakespeare’s plays. At the same time, whilst the writing is good, it lacks the poetry of a more straight adaptation (e.g. the Hollow Crown).

I do find the performances to be compelling, and in particular, find it interesting to see Henry V as a contemplative humanist rather than a victorious warlord. It’s an interesting idea (if perhaps ahistoric) and does perhaps act as a medication on more modern conflicts.

In particular, the film diverges significantly from Shakespeare’s plot significantly towards the end. It seems to try to this to change to modify the original 16th century propaganda of the play to a discussion of Realpolitik. This is a good idea in principle, but is somewhat undercut from having just watched an hour glorifying Henry.

It is also technically impressive - both the art and cinematography departments have outdone themselves - standards we have perhaps come to expect from Netflix productions.

On the whole, I admire the attempt to give a fresh take on the source material, but would rather they took inspiration from the history, rather than from a play written centuries after.

CinemaSerf

At last an opportunity to see Timothée Chalamet doing something a little grittier. Sadly, t'was not to be. His portrayal of this great character from early 15th Century British history left me cold. He looked like a good meal would have killed him, never mind a bloodthirsty foe clad in iron armed with an axe. The accent held up reasonably well, but he still struggles to shake off the winsome, "butter wouldn't melt" image and as he has to pretty much carry this film en seul, it just doesn't really work. The rare appearances by Robert Pattinson border on the hammy; with his final appearance reminding me of the first few steps taken by "Bambi" back in 1942. It is great that Netflix are prepared to fund projects like this, but the plain truth is that no amount of money can compensate for a poor screenplay - think Shakespeare "light" - supplemented with a few high-profile cameo contributions and some, admittedly, fantastic battle scenarios.

The King( 2019)

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A review by Splinter

Written by Splinter on Mon Nov 11 2019

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